Kolb's Model of Reflection on some writing strategies I found interesting, the importance of writing strategies in the classroom and how having strategies will help students become more successful writers.
Concrete Experience: “what I did” section
The topic of UNIT 6 was Teaching Writing, Part I: Story Making, which is familiar to me because of my work in a private school with an International Baccalaureate programme. Story making was one of the most important parts of teaching children in the primary grades, with the aim of continuing to teach them how to write essays in the middle and upper grades. The main textbook used in the training was English World 4. Each topic in English World 4 had exercises to practise writing skills.
These pages helped not only students to write texts on a given topic, but also teachers to create their own lessons based on a given model.
Reflective Observations: ‘what I wonder’ section
This week's resource (Bowkett, 2010), on writing in the classroom, is divided into four sections: Getting Started, Building Narrative, Enriching the Story, and Story Grids. Of the four sections listed, I was familiar with the first three, and the last one was a complete surprise, as I had not used such techniques before. And, as it turns out, native speakers' methodologies are quite different from those proposed for teaching English as a foreign language. This difference creates a sense of two completely different approaches, where students are expected to start their writing journey from scratch, whereas in the case where English is the second language of instruction, children learn to write dictations and essays in their own language.
Abstract Conceptualization: “what I learned” so what” section
While reading the methodologies, I was constantly comparing the methodologies I was learning with those that I already knew and used in practice. It so happened that in my discussion essay I talked about similar practices rather than the ones I had read. Later, when I was doing the Unit 6 Writing Assignment, I realised that many of the assignments in the lesson would need to be tried with students for comparison. For now, I can't pick any technique and claim that it necessarily works for me. But I am extremely curious to give it a try.
Application “now what” section
I want to duplicate from written assignment 6 the strategies I am going to try with my students.
Getting Started
Activity
Take a single picture.
Explain the class the word: exactly, precisely, in more detail, tell me more, and also.
Remind children of the Big Six question words: what, where, when, who, why, how.
Next start framing questions with these key words and the “precision questioning terms.”. For example,
What did the book look like in more detail?
How exactly did the pages sound as the boy found the book.
Tell me more about the room where the boy found the book.
What else could the boy see from the road apart from the house?
What precisely was the weather like?
Learning benefits
Activity develops skills for internalising attention. This is called metacognition, i.e. a person's knowledge of their own cognitive process, as well as the ability to analyse their thinking strategies and manage their cognitive activities
Strengthens multisensory thinking skills
Gives children the skill of forming precise questions
Use these questions as a critical thinking tool when students are confronted by generalizations or engaged in constructive argument and debate.
In the next step, students should be divided into groups and given the task of answering the generated questions. The next step is to select the most interesting answers to create a future story plot (Planning a Writing Lesson, n.d.)
.
Building Narrative
Activity
And so the beginning of the story is there; however, every story has a beginning (setting the scene, introducing the protagonist and the first actions), a middle (understanding the difficulties, progressing the actions) and an end (solving the hero or narrative problem).This needs to be told to the children. You can also use Story Maker 1 (2024) for a warm-up activity
The story should have mandatory elements such as hero, villain, problem, journey, partner, help, knowledge applied as power and important object. The Yin-Yang symbol is suitable for demonstrating the inter-relationship between the hero and the villain.
Working with this symbol will help students understand that every hero has weaknesses and every villain hides a grain of goodness. You can spend a few minutes on this and ask students to give examples from books or familiar stories.
Next, distribute the pre-prepared worksheets with a grid.
And discuss each element of the story. To maximise the involvement of each student in the discussion, it is a good idea to first ask the groups to define each element, e.g. ‘The hero is Harry Potter. He is kind, friendly, etc.’. Working through the definitions will help to focus on the difference between hero and villain, problem and journey.
Learning benefits
Provides a solid template for creating a structurally sound story in any genre
Gives children a tool to analyse and explore other stories they read
Offers a planning strategy instead of coming up with a specific story idea student can build a narrative from the end by first considering the elements of the story.
The next step would be to fill a table with their values with the names of future characters in their story. And then allow students to create their own stories that they can read in pairs or small groups.
Enriching the Story
When stories are finished and read, it's a shame to part with beloved characters. It's time for a sequel.
Activity
For the continuation of any story you can find a correspondingly intriguing ending, when all the problems are solved, but again the phone rings, or a letter arrives at the post office, or someone in a hood knocked on the door ....
To begin work on the continuation is suitable for the following exercise:
Choose several cards with different stories or pictures, turn them face down and ask the student to turn over the first one with the words: ‘If the story had a continuation, what happened next?’. Since there are more cards than one, there can be many continuation options. And all ideas can be suggested by students one at a time, or better yet, in the group in which they wrote their story. Each group can be given four cards and asked to come up with a continuation, putting all the pictures in a random sequence. This activity will teach students co-operation and understanding.
Learning Benefits
This activity will teach you how to ask questions and plan an investigation
To develop an understanding that every action has a cause, to help reason about cause and effect, and to enable a narrative to be organised into a logical chain.
It is not necessary to prompt what the student can see in the picture, as this prevents them from focusing on their own perceptions and feelings.
As for Story Grid, I found an interesting game that I also want to try with my students next week. It will be used the activity from GridClub webpage (Tell a Story in 60 Seconds - Fun English Game for Kids by GridClub, 2024)
Description
Storyline offers a character, a location and a subject as basis for a story to narrate in 60 seconds. Develops speaking and drama skills; encourages use of structure within a story. Best done in pairs.
References
Bowkett, S. (2010). Developing literacy and creative writing through storymaking: story strands for 7-12-year-olds. Retrievedfrom eBook Central (accessed through LIRN).
Planning aStory telling grid. (2024). TeachingEnglish. https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-resources/teaching-secondary/activities/intermediate-b1/story-telling-grid
Story Maker 1 | LearnEnglish Kids. (2024). Britishcouncil.org. https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/fun-games/games/story-maker-1
Tell a Story in 60 Seconds - fun english game for kids by GridClub. (2024). GridClub. https://gridclub.com/activities/tell-a-story-in-60-seconds